Jenis High Street Short North

Jeni’s

Friday September 4^th

10-11pm

I have yet to walk into a Jenis Ice Cream that has a well-designed traffic or work flow model. Customers enter into the store through the main entrance. They approach a counter that has all of the flavors of ice cream twice linearly enabling more employee workstation. However this is limited by the presence of a single workstation setup on the back counter where all of the necessary condiments and garnishes are. This leads to a turn around and wait until the path is unoccupied by the other employees that are all heading to the same point.

If a customer is unfamiliar with the setup they will not understand that the flavors are repeated at the two ice cream coolers and stand unknowingly at the first one reluctant to miss a flavor. This is something I have witnessed several times due to the lack of signage indicating the proper protocols as a customer. Protocol involves in this instance always moving forward. From waiting to order to, and having placed your order until checkout.

I would propose that the system would benefit from a call system on the back wall that would bring the necessary item to the ice cream preparer rather then them having to fight the crowd every time.  The necessary items are keyed in and then delivered right behind the appropriate individual.  Additionally Jeni’s should acquire spaces that allow for an increased traffic flow.  My drawing implies that there is much more open space than there actually is within the store.  There could also be interactive signage or a system that can tell people when to move forward, welcome them, inform them of the general flow model of the space, or perhaps assist them in making decisions, it could tell them some good flavor combinations based on different desires.